In fact, it's a lavish example of Christmas spirit. Cartwright wrote the play as a favour for a friend, director Nick Bagnall, who has turned Malton's redundant assembly room into a successful arts centre. And though it may seem slightly peculiar to praise a play on the strength of its interval, Cartwright has come up with a cracker.

The format is straightforward: in the first half, the villagers arrive and set out their stall. The intermission is the fair itself, in which the audience is invited to mingle, enjoy a mince pie and sit on Santa's knee (actually there aren't many takers for that, as the Scrooge of a caretaker makes an intimidatingly hostile Father Christmas).

But it is the second half, presented as a sequence of extended soliloquies, in which Cartwright taps into the metaphorically rich, alliterative seam of prose poetry for which he's famous. The vicar – slightly improbably – was a Hells Angel before turning to the other side; the lady of the manor is about to have her manor repossessed. We even get to learn what Santa's problem is, as the caretaker, outstandingly played by Ian Bartholomew, is revealed to be a former serviceman traumatised by a Christmas Day shooting in Northern Ireland.

It's a little sketchy in places, but the miracle is that Bagnall's delightful production has happened at all. The next A-list writer lined up for the Milton Rooms is Simon Armitage. Watch this space.